General frustration with US Forces

Number three would work

In my humble opinion, what USF really needs is for the AT gun to be moved from T3 to T2. In my experience for USF the big problems begins when the enemy starts putting vehicles out, even halftracks will often kill your game when you have no counter available.

OKW can produce it's AT weapon right from the start of any match. USF has to spend what 120 fuel just to be able to get access to an AT gun (which isn't even very good). This is just so unbalanced.

Tier structure does leave something to be desired. I would suggest either swap the pack howie and the mg OR the m15.

Going lieutenant is mandatory currently. light vehicles are usf's greatest asset. It also comes with a huge liability. Going Lt. ,unless airborne, means no at guns. With bazookas being iffy it leaves a huge hole for and early p4/ostwind or p2 to totally wreck your army unless your m20 mines have clairvoyance. Going captain for the AT gun and nothing else is crappy too. Nothing else in that tier is something i want in even 10% of my games, let alone virtually every game. I always get an m20 or an m15 depending on map control/fuel situation.

Perhaps separating the light vehicles to one per tier would be good. leave the m20 with the Lt, and make it so you still need zooks if you go that route and have the m15 with the Capt. That would delay the fast m15 another minute and a half or so. giving wehr a better shot against it, but also giving the aaht an AT gun to back it up, making it a more viable fuel expenditure. I'm always leery of going m15, except if it's for the coup de grace, since it's so expensive and becomes obsolete fairly quickly. Giving it a bit of cover from armor(not light vehicles) would help it immensely. Giving something worthwhile to the captain would also be nice. I dont see any huge advantages to giving the pack howie to the Lt, but I don't see any disadvantages either.

Alternatively swapping the pack howie and the mg gives the mg and the AT gun to the captain, which would be nice to have them in the same tier. It still leaves the conundrum of choosing light vehicles or an AT gun, but at least all of the factions suppression(RE's don't count) isn't in the same tier.

Another course could be to have Lieutenant be m2, m20, 57mm while captain has pack howie, stuart, m15. This, I believe would signal the end of the captain tier except in games to mop up an overwhelming win. All it does is move a great vehicle to a crappy tier.

personally i think the m15 for pack howie is the best idea. it gives usf indirect fire earlier, which would be nice sometimes, while retaining the current AT situation for going Lt., which i believe is working as intended. You can do okay with zooks and m20, but not great. It would remove the all or nothing feel from the lieutenant though and removing the just nothing feeling from el capitan.


I will say that shifting things in the tiers a bit would make the USF more flexible, which is sorta supposed to be their thing, right..? Going hard AI or hard AT at that point in the game is a difficult, and consequential decision. Have a bit of both in both tiers. That way each is viable. t3 is well done, one ai, one at, one generalist. (id argue m4a3 is absolute garbage AT, but fuctioning in that role as a spotter for jackson it's passable.)

p.s. complaining about jackson three shotting p4 is ironic. jackson is three shotted by everything.....(and they cost the same) and four shotted by zooks. I agree about the units for teching putting wehrmacht behind, but i've no idea how to fix that aside from tech cost adjustments, but this is a USF thread... The popcap issue of officers can be a real problem late game. Having the space for only three vehicles late and your m20 somehow survived that long becomes troublesome.

I personally like having both capt and lt. Usually will back tech capt late for at guns if not airborne. It's just that it isn't viable to tech linear. Makes tanks too late. I've had a few games where I back tech for a pack howie too. WP can be very useful. It's just frustrating that only airborne is viable (team games especially). I love the e8. Can't ever use it though....

i can see the jackson going one of three directions without becoming OP (cue relic on the 4th that doesn't really work...).

1) reduce damage and increase pen
2) increase pen and increase reload (still RNG dependent and could be frustrating)
3) increase pen and cost

any of those would make it better against heavies without making mediums any more hard countered.

Well it is still too fragile, and USF does not have power full support units like Schreked Pzgrens or Volks, so a good rush will finish it off easily. they also can not spam mines like other factions. But they can increase its cost a bit if that turns out to be a major problem, remember that it is supposed to be their late game AT counter. I would love to see Option one.

Well it is still too fragile, and USF does not have power full support units like Schreked Pzgrens or Volks, so a good rush will finish it off easily. they also can not spam mines like other factions. But they can increase its cost a bit if that turns out to be a major problem, remember that it is supposed to be their late game AT counter. I would love to see Option one.

right, and i don't think the durability can be changed without a large cost increase or a massive nerf to the offensive abilities. i don't think it necessarily needs to be changed either; the jackson can just be a fragile unit as long as it has some advantage (range) that it can leverage.

while US does have problems with getting rushed you can mitigate that some by building tank traps. the jackson doesn't really need to be tough for the ranges it operates at, but it does need to be able to be supported enough that such a rush can bleed the enemy in return and that's questionable right now, especially without shermans, which also compete for fuel.